Chris Rattue: Interchange - it's just an interruption

What I'm really tempted to do here is climb the highest mountain, fill the lungs, and scream: "Save our footy - change the interchange."

And when it comes to rugby, I will, although without holding out any hope that its substitution rules will be altered.

Is there anything more bizarre in sport than the end of a rugby clash these days?

You can watch Chris Jack and Victor Matfield go fingertip to fingertip in a ripping duel, but come the final hooter, you're just as likely to find someone called Craig Clarke introducing himself to a van der whatsit or a blah blah burg while the heroes of the day can be found reclining on the sideline.

Rugby coaches love to flood the final minutes of games with lesser-names. It doesn't matter how big the occasion, it can still end up like you've watched Casablanca and found a scene from The Young and the Restless inserted at the end.

I've got used to emails, MMP voting, kids who talk like Nasa scientists and a worldwide obsession with dancing reality shows (just).

But I still can't get used to rugby games ending like they've brought back curtainraisers, added 10 to all the jersey numbers, and stuck them on the wrong end of the schedule.

Like you'd ever see Mick Jagger, drenched in sweat having pranced through another Rolling Stones concert, screaming to the audience: "Thank you New York. You were great. And here to close the show is Wild Horses, to be sung by Nickelback."

Hey pal - bugger Nickelback, we want money back.

The temptation, having gone over Friday night's league test in Brisbane, is to plead with the people who run the league game to turn back the years and tone down the interchange.

What a duel that test was - in the lead-up that is. There were all sorts of matchups: Karmichael Hunt versus his former countrymen, Ricky Stuart versus Brian McClennan. Even the Australian Rugby League put up its dukes and started punching out data on where all the Kiwis were born.

Come game time though, it got tougher to spot the head-to-head clashes which traditionally fuelled the fire.

Classic match-long ding dongs are a thing of the past in the roll-on, roll-off era.

An all-time test classic was the duel between Britain's Kevin Ward and Kiwi Adrian Shelford in the muddy test in Christchurch nearly two decades ago.

Wild buffalo would have got trampled, had they got between those two that day.

But with 12 interchanges available, the most dangerous place to stand in the modern game is near the sideline.

The maestro league writer, the former top Aussie club coach Roy Masters, this week called for a reduction in the interchange and revealed that Aussie coach Stuart was in favour of dropping the number from 12 to eight.

And to that I say hear! hear!

"Let them get tired," might be the theme of Masters' argument.

Those with medical concerns, especially in very hot conditions, will baulk at the idea.

But the advantages are huge. For a start, the chances are that tiring players would not be as able to stifle the game and confuse the play-the-ball area with gang tackling, Masters argued.

Little men - the brilliant passers and steppers we all like to see - get more of a chance as the heavyweights wilt. A reduced interchange might also give renewed meaning to desperate acts of heroics.

Some in New Zealand league also believe an interchange reduction here would promote the development of halves and hookers, the area where the Kiwis are crying out for talent.

The Bartercard Cup has an interchange of 12, and below that it is unlimited - probably because there are not enough officials to police a limited interchange.

There is little doubt that smaller, more skilled players would be encouraged through the grades if they didn't have to face a conveyor belt of big belters. Fitter, smaller players would not only last a game, but in the sport.

There would be a further plus, in my opinion - league would reclaim character of old.

Greats like Matthew Ridge have lamented the loss of this ingredient in recent times, and the mass interchange - its robotic effect - surely has something to do with it.

There is a big "but", however, and that's the effect an interchange reduction would have on test football.

International league needs a fit and firing Kiwi side to challenge Australia, and the lower the interchange number the lower the Kiwis' (and Great Britain's) prospects.

The 50-12 blowout on Friday night was bad enough, but had the interchange number been eight then the Australian scoreboard number would have been greater.

The Kiwis were running out of gas around the 52-minute mark, when they had used six changes while Australia needed only three.

The Kiwis rely on explosive players; Australia has endurance on its side.

The amazing marathon man is Nathan Hindmarsh, the Parramatta Eel who looks built for darts but whose fitness and workrate hit the bullseye. Hindmarsh has the rear end of a bus but a Rolls-Royce motor. A day after the test, he churned out 37 tackles for the Eels against Canberra.

"The guy is incredible - he looks like a bloke you'd find with a pie and a fag," a senior New Zealand league official told me this week.

Yet New Zealand, for all its athletic prowess, struggles to find players like Hindmarsh. The main forward fitness freak available is Warrior Wairangi Koopu, but he lacks the high-impact game to make him attractive to representative selectors.

The Kiwi forwards needed maximum rest on Friday night, although Jason Cayless was upset at being replaced around the fourth quarter, as coach Brian McClennan readied him for one final burst.

"He didn't give me the single digit or anything like that, but I could tell he was disappointed by his body language," McClennan said.

Stamina, though, is not the usual Kiwis game.

The test scene needs a rampant Kiwi side, and the Kiwis need their rest.

So let's reluctantly hang fire on a change to the interchange.

For now.